Answer: The upper awakens us from the start. As it says “I am the first.” This first awakening is given to a person before he begins to yearn for spirituality. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had such thoughts from the start and it wouldn’t touch his heart.

Everything begins from an awakening from Above, called the “Reshimo” (reminiscence, information gene)—a reason, the influence of the friends, a desire that is suddenly evoked, a song—this is how I am awakened.

The awakening always comes from the upper, but usually in a concealed way without a connection to Him. It is as if I wake up by chance, suddenly. The upper hides on purpose, so as not to steal the “freewill” from me. The question is how will I work with this awakening, how will I respond to it?

First, do I understand that I have received it from the upper and thank Him for awakening me? In addition I have to clarify what exactly I have to wake up to? What are the options that I have?

This is the clarification of the question about the meaning of life, which I now have to ask myself: “What is the point in my life? Why should I go on living?” This means, what does my ego, my desire, aim at? What am I living for?

I begin to clarify the goal of my life in a more accurate manner, sorting the desires, until I find the most worthwhile desire for which it is really worthwhile to live. Suppose I had one last minute to live, and I had a chance to ask for one thing only, what would I ask for in this last minute?

I have to clarify what the most important thing for me is, what I should ask for. When we delve into this clarification, we see that we can only do it in a group. After all, it is the pattern of the upper world—as if the upper world descends into our world.

On the one hand, the relations among the friends are egoistic and they clarify this world for us. Yet, at the same time we have a point in the heart, which enables us to build a layer of upper relations, called the next world, the upper world.

Then we will be able to work on two planes: suppressing the lower, egoistic layer as much as we can trying to build another layer above it, a new level of relations based on love, mutual concern, mutual guarantee and connection.

The group enables us to build the pattern of the upper relations. It provides us with many opportunities to mutually work on our envy, on the lust, the hatred, and the love. Thanks to it we understand why we behave one way and not differently, and we begin to understand our states. Thus we quickly clarify our only right request.

We examine the other requests and see that they are all trivial and temporary and so we draw away from them. It says: “All the gates are locked, except for the gate of tears,” which means except for the last gate in which we demand adhesion according to equivalence of form. After all, we did everything we could, we tried to fulfill it and we saw that we can’t. We do not rest, but rather demand and ask, and thus reach what we desire.

This preparation includes many stages: The feeling of exile, the domination of Pharaoh, and then the struggle against him, until we manage to escape and reach a spiritual birth.[88583]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, Writings of Rabash